Nailing It
Hooded and wrapped in tight black clothing, Dayla hung upside down, staring to where her quarry walked the wooden floor. Unaware of the menace above, he paced, muttering to himself in a carrying tone about his latest foul deed. Slowly she slithered down the rope, paying it out so no dangling end could warn him, calves flexing to control her descent. Finally low enough, poised like a spider behind him as he paused in his pacing, she drew her twin blades. With a dramatic pause to savor the moment, the brightly gleaming blades crossed in front of his throat and scissored out. The man gurgled horribly, hands flying to the wound, and spun to face her, blood fountaining across her face and shoulders. Ewwwwww she thought. I did not need him to do that. Gurgling even more, he thrashed to the floor, in her professional opinion taking far too long to die and doing it far too messily. Who wants to see that? wondered Dayla as she lithely spun to land upright beside the dying man. I need a better job. An abrupt whisper from the side startled the assassin. “Vengeance!” came the hiss. Oh, right. She flung her arms theatrically wide, blades still gleaming, crying out, “Vengeance! The last murderer of my family is gone!” “Don’t claim what’s not yours!” shouted someone. Dayla gritted her teeth and ignored the shout as a blade suddenly sprouted out of her chest, thrust from behind. Close in her ear came the velvety voice of her lover, carrying far: “Don’t claim what’s not yours,” he purred. As he held her pinned on the blade, he raised a hand to pull off her hood, letting her long gold hair spill out. She turned her face, speechless in shock, cheek to cheek with him as they both stared over their left shoulders. “You’ve been a perfect pawn. These were my enemies, not yours, for I ended your kin, and with you, your entire line, but not before you ended all who might oppose me.” He yanked back on the blade, letting her spill bonelessly to the boards, face now turned the other way. That let her scowl as he turned, stepping painfully on her hair. He does that every time no matter what I say. He’s doing it on purpose. Declaiming grandly to the audience, he announced, “Vengeance is a tool that turns. Wield it through others, or fall!” Wild applause accompanied the curtain’s fall and the hustling of stage hands to set the next scene. Dayla hurried off stage, rubbing her scalp all the way to her dressing room. As expected, flower bouquets already awaited her, even as the play worked towards its conclusion. Also expected was the rapping at her door moments after she’d scrubbed off the false blood and snuggled into her dressing gown. At her welcoming call, the door opened. “Shirene – “ she began, but this was not her fellow actress coming for the traditional congratulations. Instead, a dashingly handsome fellow in fine clothes leaned in. “Not interrupting, I hope, Miss Dunworthy?” he inquired, stepping through and shutting the door. “Admirable performance. Your talent’s wasted, I say, wasted on theater.” At her gathering frown he smiled disarmingly. “Won’t take long. Just want to give you my card, in case you ever feel like pursuing something more meaningful. You’re athletic, you can act, that’s a stellar combination in my lord’s eyes.” With that he bowed over her hand, pressing into her palm a card containing only the image of a raven’s head. “Come to South Shore, give the tavernkeep there this card. You’ll be escorted to Ravenholdt.” In a moment he was gone, leaving her flabbergasted. The next visitor arrived nearly on his heels, bursting in without knocking. “What the fel was that?” demanded Barnes without preamble. He took his duties as the opera house’s master of ceremonies quite seriously. “It’s a simple line and you never remember it without a prompt! The audience loves that part, it’s where all the lines of betrayal and deceit threading through the whole play come to a head, and you can’t get the timing to save your life!” “You try thinking straight after hanging upside down for several minutes,” she muttered, taking up her powder brush. Barnes puffed up like a bullfrog. “That’s it, Dunworthy. You get the line right without prompting tomorrow night, or Shirene takes the role. If his Lordship had been in his box instead of at his studies on the Terrace, you’d be gone tonight.” Dayla laughed in his face. “Shirene can’t do the rope.” “We’ll use wires,” he shot back. He stomped out, slamming the door so hard it bounced open again, this time admitting Billy Nebbles. Billy made a fine stage hand, and a fine friend, always good for a cheering word. “Don’t you mind him, Miss Dayla. You’ll get it right, I just know you will. ‘sides, they won’t want to remake that.” He pointed to the noblewoman’s gown she’d worn earlier in the play, now carefully arrayed on its stand. Truth, Shirene was a bit more buxom than Dayla, a bit more zaftig all around. Shirene made a fine Julienne, Dayla reflected as she summoned up a smile for Billy. Not this more sharp-edged role. “You’re right.” She ducked behind her dressing screen, speedily pulling on shirt, trousers, and boots. Emerging, she flipped the bloody hood and shirt from her final scene to Billy. “Get this to Jessie for cleaning, will you? She’ll fuss if the stuff sets.” He nodded. “Where you going, Miss Dayla?” “Out for some air.” She casually slid past him, slipping through the backstage’s controlled chaos, and if anyone saw her grab the coiled rope she’d descended earlier, no one commented. Not long after that she was outside Karazhan’s walls and climbing out of the valley under the bright full moon, uncertain how far she wanted to walk but very certain she needed her distance right now. Something … pulled at her. Not knowing why, she turned, looking back at the keep, its windows blazing with the banquet and play and revelry therein. The next moment she was on her knees, an unearthly wail filling the air, filling her bones, heard with her body though no ear could make it out. The moon still shone, no clouds gathered, yet somehow the light did not reach Karazhan’s walls, the keep’s windows shed no glow. Dull purple luminescence, malevolent, crawled in odd patterns over the walls, while the wail went on, endlessly, pressing her down into darkness. Dayla woke to noon’s blazing, sprawled as if crawling away from the keep. Even in daylight, she could not make herself turn to see what lay behind her. Staggering, she rose, and walked away, fingering the card in her pocket. A new job. Something with purpose. Something to keep out thoughts of … Karazhan … -------------------------- “Dayla Dunworthy!” snapped Fahrad. Dayla startled, attention returning to her master. “Arrgh!” he continued. “No. No no no. That name does not command your attention or response. You are Sefina Scatterthwait, remember?” “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, rubbing her temple, trying to shed unwelcome thoughts of the past. “A bit more drill –“ “Won’t help,” the Grand Master cut her off. “You can do better, you have done better all these years. You’re not as limber as you used to be but you damn well can still act. We’ve spent resources setting you up to become her Ladyship’s aide, and you can’t remember a basic cover story or get the mannerisms right? In one week you have to be living and breathing Scatterthwait or our work is wasted. We need you as our agent. Or is it time for you to retire?” Retiring from Ravenholdt meant retiring from everything else as well, including breathing. Dayla shook her head. “I’ll get it, sir.” She stood. “I’m going out for some air.” The Grand Master frowned after her, fingers slowly drumming, but long service had earned her some leeway. Dayla stood outside the Manor, looking out over the hills and past them to the south. From there came the call, the ever-present call. She had a week. There was time to indulge the summons at last, to go see what the whispers were about, the rumors of ghosts and curses in Karazhan Keep, and still be in Stormwind to take her role. --------------------------------- Dayla stood on the ridge, gazing down on Karazhan. Just as when she’d left so long ago, light seemed unable to touch it. She didn’t have long. Stormwind awaited. Ravenholdt needed her. Or did they? Her interest in her ‘job that means something’ fell away, suddenly as faint a memory as she’d kept this place all this time. Slowly she walked down the slope towards the front gate. A carriage clattered up, laughing nobles disembarking. She’d been watching long enough to know that it would pull off, and circle the Keep, and pull up again to disgorge the same passengers. Merging with the gaily chattering party, bright smile on her face, she entered the keep. As the nobles clattered up the grand stairs to the right, Dayla faded to the side, letting them go to the banquet hall. She looked into the ballroom. Everything was just as it had been that final night. A pavanne ended, and began again, extra dancer moving to rest against the wall. Dayla joined the dance, slowly working her way up the line, turning to join the next set of dancers until she could step out past the valet to climb the stairs to the mezzanine. Over the years, adventurers and treasure seekers had come to Karazhan. They broke in, disrupted the patterns, aroused the ghosts’ ire. Instead, Dayla became part of the endlessly replayed events of that fated evening, drawing no attention, herself drawn onward to an unheard beacon. She walked through cobwebs – then through bright light and clean halls – then through ruin and decay once more, body language changing as she moved to fit her in to the routines she joined. Past the ushers, along the gallery, and she was backstage, chaos the same as it had been, the play going on before an enthusiastic audience. “Miss Dayla,” hailed Billy. “You’re back from your walk!” She saw the wall through him, before he went solid as he’d ever been. He urged her to her dressing room. Dust lay thick on every surface, her old powder brush lying in a sodden mass of slimed cosmetics. The fine noble gown hung more holes than fabric, a moth lazily waving its wings on one shoulder. Dazed, Dayla reached to touch, finding the gown whole and beautiful, the room’s dust gone, the dark assassin garb neatly folded on the dressing chair. “Death scene in five!” bawled Barnes in her ear, but even as she turned he was gone to smoke. Hadn’t she done the scene before she left? Here were her dressers, pulling off her travel clothes, their fingers now flesh, now bone, the costume fresh, then stained rags. She’d put on muscle over the years, broadened her shoulders, cut her hair. The black garb went on as if tailored that day, only rarely flashing into rags that let in a chill draft. Pushed out by the dressers, Dayla mounted the rafters, more agile than she’d been in years. From her waist she unwound the long-kept rope, hooking it into place. She’d done this scene. She’d done it, nightly, in her dreams. Below, the plotting lord began his pacing. Dayla crouched, leaned, tipped over, spidering down the rope. She hung behind him long enough for the audience to draw its ghostly breath, then in silent menace drew her paired blades, carefully blacked steel showing no betraying gleams. Her target was ghost – man – ghost – man – and the daggers scissored, the man gurgled, spun, blood spraying across her, eyes wide as he fell limp to the boards. With easy grace she flipped down to her feet, held her weapons wide, and cried “Vengeance! The last murderer of my family is gone!” I nailed it, she exulted as the heckler spoiled her lover’s line, as the solid steel thrust through her from behind, the hood yanked from her head spilled her long hair down her back. Dull shock took her – that’s not a prop sword – and she fell, twisted. The villain stepped on her hair, a distant tugging, a nothing, his proud closing line lost in the roaring in her ears. Then Barnes was there, translucent, but solidly taking her hand, lifting her up, her discarded form turning to dust at her feet, the theater back to its old glory, limelights shining. He turned her to the audience. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he proclaimed. “Our star is returned! Presenting Dayla Dunworthy, in unlimited engagement!” He urged her to take a bow, and sent her off to her dressing room to don the noble gown. After all, the play would be starting in a few minutes.